#6. IMA's Six Degrees of Separation

LACMA did it, everyone on Facebook is doing it, and now the IMA is turning it up a notch with blog “tagging”. Here it is…what you all have been waiting for…25 Random Things about the IMA. 

The Rules (according to Facebook, of course): Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged in your post.

1. General admission to the IMA is FREE!
2. Percival de Luce’s oil on canvas painting, An Anxious Mother, was the Museum’s first acquisition.
3. One person in all of Samoa visited our Web site in 2008. That person looked at five pages and stayed for just over two minutes.
4. Last year, 2,671 visited our site with an iPhone and 36 visited via a PlayStation 3.
5. One person visited the IMA Web site with a 1 bit screen resolution. How is that even possible?
6. Six Degrees of Separation: IMA staff member and blogger Anne Laker is cousins with the America’s Top Model Winner Adrianne Curry, who is married to Christopher Knight (aka Peter Brady), who once guest starred on That ’70s Show with Debra Jo Rupp (Mrs. Forman), who played Phoebe’s sister in-law on Friends, which starred Jennifer Aniston, who played a love interest of Kevin Bacon in the 1997 romantic comedy, Picture Perfect. Whew!
7. There are approximately 164 fluorescent lights mounted to the wall in the IMA’s Pulliam Great Hall. The lights are part of a three-story fluorescent light installation by Robert Irwin entitled Light and Space III, which was specifically designed for the museum’s main 60-foot atrium.
8. The largest painting in the IMA’s collection is Rosy Cardita by Larry Zox, measuring 69” 252”.
9. The smallest painting in the IMA collection is Portrait of Paul Peckham by Lewis Peckham. It measures 1 in. x 1 ¾ in.
10. Nancy Reagan and fashion designer Bill Blass (an Indiana native), donated a red silk, chiffon and taffeta evening dress worn by the former first lady to the Museum’s Textile and Fashion Arts Collection.
11. There was actually a vending machine in the building that sold art – Gallery of the Machine by Matt Eickhoff and Artur Silva. (The vending machine is making its way back to Artur’s studio at the Harrison Center for the Arts for some repairs.)
12. The IMA’s collection includes Vincent Van Gogh’s Landscape at Saint-Remy, which was painted during the final year of the artist’s life.
13. The IMA recently acquired the landmark Miller House and Garden in Columbus, Indiana. Designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2000, it is considered one of the country’s most highly-regarded examples of mid-century Modernist residences.
14. The IMA has its own in-house Nugget Factory which conceptualizes, films, produces and delivers high quality art video for ArtBabble.org.
15. The 52 acres of the IMA campus currently open to the public comprised the town of Woodstock in the early 20th century.
16. Encompassing 152 acres of gardens and grounds, the IMA is among the 10 largest encyclopedic art museums in the United States.
17. Last year, 508 IMA volunteers donated more than 26,000 hours of their time.
18. According to the Dashboard, the IMA’s Horticulture staff planted 30,443 new plants on the IMA grounds in 2008.
19. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is one of the most popular days for the IMA. In 2007, we welcomed 4,500 visitors on MLK day.
20. Within two years of beginning an engineering-based, detailed approach to reducing its energy consumption, the IMA’s average monthly demand for electricity and natural gas was reduced by about 40 percent. The energy conservations also reduced the IMA’s greenhouse gas emissions (CO2) by more than 6,700 tons.
21. The IMA’s Stout Reference Library has more than 100,000 items of information on visual arts including books, periodicals, museum publications, auction catalogs and individual artist files.
22. As one of the 10 oldest general art museums in the country, the Indianapolis Museum of Art was founded during American history’s most remarkable movement in creating museum institutions, starting in the 1870s when New York and Boston established their museums.
23. The Toby was built using 23,642 pounds of recycled material.
24. In 2010, the IMA will open 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, which will be one of the largest contemporary museum art parks in the country. The Park will feature artworks commissioned from both emerging and veteran artists, who will create temporary and permanent works in response to the site’s varied geography.
25. The Indianapolis Museum of Art offers FREE general admission! Oh, wait…did I already mention that?

Wikipedia Loves Art

So here’s the scoop, directly from Wikipedia’s page: “Wikipedia Loves Art, the name being a play off Valentine’s Day, is a scavenger hunt and free content photography contest among museums and cultural institutions worldwide, and aimed at illustrating Wikipedia articles. The event is planned to run for the whole month of February 2009. Although there are planned events at each location, you can go on your own at any time during the month.”

Straight from the horses mouth. All you need is -

• A good understanding of the official rules and listing of themes we/Wikipedia needs documented. You can find that list HERE.
• You’ll also need to sign-up, but that part is easy. It’s your chance to contribute something worthwile, show your photographic eye and experience our art galleries = warm and free.
• Transportation to the IMA, a digital camera, pencil/notepad and a Flickr account.

It’s also Indiana’s opportunity to help out Wikipedia with better art content, go head-to-head against some of the leading museums throughout the world and, perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier, your opportunity to win an iPod touch, blog t-shirt and more.

Questions?  Feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me at newmedia@imamuseum.org.  Let’s do this thing!

June at SFMoMA – I’m headed to San Francisco next week, and SFMoMA is on the top of my list for places to visit. There’s just something about that museum that makes me feel super hip when I’m in its presence. I’m fired up because I just discovered that I’m going to be there during the opening week of Frida Kahlo. I’m thinking about buying a membership to the museum just so I can hang out on Thursday night at the member reception. If that party is anything like what I’ve imagined, the cocktail hour is going to look like an opening of a Marc Jacobs store.

July at the MCA Chicago –I have to say, I am enamored by the MCA Chicago’s marketing team. Particularly the person that writes the eNewsletters. Even if you don’t live anywhere near Chicago you should sign up for their eNews. It is the perfect mix of wit and info. This July, I’m looking forward to a couple of things at the MCA. First, Jeff Koons opened last week and I can’t wait to see it. I’m also really looking forward to attending a First Friday event. Every month, the MCA brings in a DJ, features the work of local artists, and apparently has figured out a lighting system to make everyone at the party looking stunningly beautiful. Check out the pictures!

August at The Walker - My pulse raced when I read a headline from the Walker Art Center’s May enewsletter, “Walker on the Green: Artist-Designed Mini Golf.” Finally, my dream has come true! Before I was a museum professional, I was a golf professional. For a full summer after graduate school, I taught golf lessons at a country club. Other than meeting Leroy Neiman at a tournament, I have never found a way to incorporate my love for golf and my love for art. THANK YOU Walker Art Center for doing it for me! Thank you for making golf cool!

Folks at the Walker – I’m coming up this summer to play a round, and as a gesture of my appreciation, I’m offering free putting lessons to the entire staff!

Michael Kimmelman– Rocked my world in 2007! Last year I read his book The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa and it changed the way I think about art, my job and my life. I’m also pretty sure he may have one of the coolest gigs in the world, as the chief art critic for the New York Times.

Tyler Green – First of all, he’s all MAN. I’m in awe of Tyler’s authoritative and often humorous blog postings for Artjournal’s Modern Art Notes (MAN). He keeps me in the know and constantly brightens my days with his prolific musings on the art world. I’m also completely in love with him because he just added the IMA to his blog roll.

Philippe de Montebello – Philippe is my original art crush. He’s been director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art since before I was born and I’ve always had a little thing for him. Not “little thing” actually…I’m talking Beatle’s Mania sort of “thing.” Honest to goodness, I might swoon if I ever meet him.

Kathy Halbreich – Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I LOVE this woman. Actually, I don’t just LOVE Kathy Halbreich, I want to BE Kathy Halbreich. As former Director of the Walker Art Center, she was at the helm of one of the coolest arts organizations in the country. This woman is a visionary, a risk taker, and an enormous inspiration for me professionally.

Will Gompertz – This guy is as hip as they come. As Director of Tate Media at the Tate Museum in England, he has my ideal job. In addition to overseeing Tate’s Communications team and Tate’s magazine (TATE, ETC.), he also is the Director of Tate Online, a leader, if not the leader in Digital Media for museums. Check out those glasses. How could you not fall in love with this man?!